Coastalblog

Melancholia time. I've started work on a new piece tonight. The working title is "Roughs for a longer text". It consists of snippets of what might be poems, what might be more a statement of intent (my reading of the semantically dodgy catch-all term "poetics"). My field is just so fucking vast . There is a weight of canon which, provides something to kick against at the smae time as being a huge set of shackles. I can write what I like, I can fight every poetic tradition that has ever existed, which may be the key to "making it new" cf Pound, tho' he was a cunt. At the same time, however, I will unconsciously reference Lee Harwood, Tom Raworth, Bill Griffiths, Roy Fisher, Brecht, Perec, Bunyan, Pynchon, Allen Fisher, Rob Sheppard, Scott Thurston, everyone I've ever read who has impacted upon me in some way. (Take a few moments here and G00gl3 a few of the names, it'll help understand, trust me). GAH! Why do I bother? The answe

SO the staff night out is out of the way, and I didn't get too drunk and do something embarrassing. On the contrary, I was the last man standing (if swaying a little by the end). The upside to this is simple, I can stop drinking now for a while. It's odd, but there's no incentive not to drink when you have a big night out looming. I spent most of last week pissed purely to keep up the momentum. ENOUGH! It's mineral water ahoy for a week, plus there's just a last little but of excess weight to shift before I'm happy - not drinking definitely the key. All of that self-indulgent nonsense out of the way, and I'm pleased to be able to report that the Shirokuma live expreience (my mate Mark, ably supported by a combination of friends and people I've never met in my life) is nearly ready to go. As well as the surprise of one of us actually amounting to soething I have found the whole thing something of a spur to my own creativity. Call it the "I'

Ho ho, so, at coastaltown towers today, the setting in of a small degree of delayed shock as regards the whole dead waiter thing. Situation not helped by the fact that Big Boss's thoroughly nice dad also shuffled off this mortal coil the day afterwards. Atmosphere at work = tres gloomy. Incidentally yes, I am going to the whole staff party, which seems a trifle irrelevant now. Also, stop press, enormous existential crisis in process triggered by god knows what. All hands to pump immediately. Supportive emails along the lines of "Dear Mr Coastaltown, I think we just rot in the ground too, also, having no legitimate purpose is not necessarily a bad thing. Love, regular Coastalblog admirer" required IMMEDIATELY.

An odd day yesterday. Lovely as it was to spend an entire day with the delightful Roe, and great as it was to go the Eagle and Child in the company of friends the whole shebang was somewhat overshadowed by the death of a former waiter of mine. He was found face down in his house. Now, this young man wasn't someone I knew particularly well, and he left a while ago, but a lot of my staff know him and the whole thing has cast a shadow over a lot of people. It's just plain depressing. So, for what it's worth, RIP James.

Ssshhhh, if nobody looks they won't notice that I'm MAKING FUNNY FACES BEHIND YOUR FUCKING BACKS = I really want to avoid the staff do, which is looming, at all costs, and I do mean AT ALL COSTS. I am an old man. I do not want to go drinking with teenagers. I want to go drinking with people who can hold a fucking conversation, and their drink.

So I finally dragged my arse to the cinema to see that Lord of the Rings thing that everyone keeps going on about. It was quite dull. Oh Evil is scary. Oh, we won. So I watched the sequel to Battle Royale. It was rubbish. Lost in translation is okay, if you like romantic comedies (I don't) and Bill Murray (I do). Scarlett Johansson, yes please, but I preferred her in Ghost World. Coming soon, capsule reveiws of anything. I'm into being casually dismissive at the moment.

It's Blog convention to post silly internet quizzes in once in a while, is it not? If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Dmitri Shostakovich ! I am a shy, nervous, unassuming, fidgety, and stuttery little person who began composing the same year I started music lessons of any sort. I wrote the first of my fifteen symphonies at age 18, and my second opera, "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," when I was only 26. Unfortunately, Stalin hated the opera, and put me on the Enemy Of The People List for life. I nevertheless kept composing the works I wanted to write in private; some of my vocal cycles and 15 string quartets mock the Soviet System in notes. And I somehow was NOT killed in the process! And Harry Potter(c) stole my glasses and broke them! Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test A little cheering. Apart from that it's been a bad, bad day. For reasons I'm not prepared to go into even in a blog that nobody reads. Just me and

IMPORTANT NOTE: all Coastalblog entries from here on in will be named after Ride songs. EQUALLY IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a lie Well, well, well, what's got into me all of a sudden? I feel stable and relaxed. I'm loving my job (which isn't to say I'm not looking for new ones, but it's astonishing what a big wedge of money will do for your outlook on things), this evening I quite possibly sewed up waiter Of The Year 2004 with a flawless performance which secured a a regular reservation by some curmudgeonly, but exceedingly rich and big spending, with lots of rich and big spending mates, blokes. Some sort of social society, I gather. I don't really care. It was like a test of how good I really am, which was passed with flying colours, off they all trooped into the night singing our praises, hefty tip and repeat booking safely bagged. Therefore I am currently Golden Boy, at least until tomorrow, which is, of course, nice (I am, of course, aware, that it'

Heigh ho for the new year and what have you. I've got a lot more time for New Year's than I do for Christmas, it's a more relevant to me, and I do seem to find that January brings with it a new impetus; largely as working in catering.... IT'S OVER! IT'S OVER! IT'S FUCKING OVER! (for another year, anyway) All that aside I saw the New Year in in fine style, a really good night at work with everyone dancing and waving their arms around, bucketloads of champers, a fairly dull after-party from which I bailed and then the best bit of the night, sat at home with a big chunky glass of port at about six in the mrning, just having a mment or ten of quiet reflection. This was followed the next day by a spectacular Casa Coastaltown Gumbo Extravaganza which was just plain great, just to have plenty of people in the same space (with a notable exception - get well soon Cel). Then a brief illness which I seem to have got away with and yesterday a shopping trip to the